


Lift Up Your Hearts

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Episode: s12e23 All Along the Watchtower, First Kiss, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Human Castiel, M/M, POV Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 11:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10990437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: He dials the number from memory. After five rings, someone picks up.“Listen, I don’t know who this is,” a tired, familiar voice says, “but this better be really fucking important.”Castiel lets out a shaky breath and says, “Hello, Dean.”





	Lift Up Your Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> please direct any complaints to [kora](http://beenghosting.tumblr.com/) since she took the finale as an invitation to send me mean thoughts that i then incorporated into this nonsense

Castiel wakes in darkness.

He reaches for his grace to find that it’s gone, but his hands are still there, so he reaches out with those, instead. He claws his way up and out of the cold and damp and crushing weight, holding his breath, chest aching.

As soon as he breaks the surface, he lies there, still half buried, and gasps in lungful after lungful of cold, fresh air.

It’s only when his breathing finally calms that he pulls himself the rest of the way out of the ground. He tries to stand but winds up falling to all fours, fabric of his damp clothes chafing against his knees, his elbows. He settles for kneeling, instead, as he tries in vain to shake the sand from his hair and clothes, wipe it from his skin.

As the sun finally peeks over the mountains, he twists his head, looks over his shoulder.

They buried him where he fell. In the early morning light, he can make out the shape of his own damaged wings seared onto the ground, stretching out on either side of where he lay. There is no cross marking his grave, no cairn, just a small circle of carefully placed rocks and a pair of familiar bootprints not yet washed away by the elements.

Castiel turns back around. He rises slowly to his feet and stumbles into the house.

\--

They left him with all of his things -- his fake IDs, his worn and faded photographs, his phone, his blade.

The blade is fine, of course, just needs to be wiped down. He sets it aside and spreads the rest of his belongings out on the table, surveying the damage. Everything is waterlogged and coated in a fine layer of sand, his photographs ruined, his phone stubbornly refusing to turn on.

Castiel gets up from the table and stands in front of the phone mounted on the wall in the kitchen, staring at it for a few long minutes before he finally picks it up and holds it to his ear. When he hears a dial tone, the sudden rush of relief warms him enough that his hands stop trembling.

He dials the number from memory. After five rings, someone picks up.

“Listen, I don’t know who this is,” a tired, familiar voice says, “but this better be really fucking important.”

Castiel lets out a shaky breath and says, “Hello, Dean.”

Several long moments pass in stunned silence, Castiel’s own heartbeat thudding loud in his ears.

Finally, Dean says, “Cas?” Just one syllable, but his voice breaks on it, anyway.

\--

Castiel strips out of his clothes and puts them in the washing machine. He makes his way upstairs and into the bathroom, steps into the shower and stands under the spray until the water runs cold. He gets out and dries himself off, leaves his towel on the floor and walks back downstairs to the laundry room.

He means to switch his clothes over to the dryer, but when he grabs his coat to lift it out, he can feel sand still clinging to the fabric. He drops it back into the washer and closes the lid. He rinses his hand off in the kitchen sink and then rummages around in the closet for a blanket.

He can’t bring himself to lie down in the bedroom, so he goes to the living room instead, turns on the TV with the volume down low and stretches out on the couch. If he closes his eyes, doesn’t focus too hard on the words, the ambient noise almost makes him feel like he isn’t alone.

\--

The touch is gentle, barely-there -- a brush of fingertips against the hair at his temple, over the curve of his ear. It wakes him up, anyway.

He waits, still and silent, in case there’s more coming, but after a few moments he gives up and opens his eyes. Dean is there in front of him, sitting on the coffee table, late afternoon light streaming in through the window behind him, casting him in a warm glow.

“Hey,” Dean says, voice quiet, hoarse, a little awed.

“Hey,” Castiel says, and lets Dean help him sit up, blanket pooling around his waist. “How did you--”

“Made it to Kansas City just in time to catch an early flight to Seattle,” Dean says, smiling, hands on Castiel’s elbows, steadying. “Booked it here as fast as I could.”

“You flew,” Castiel says. “Are you all right?”

“God, yeah, I’m--” Dean stops, huffs a laugh, lets go of one of Castiel’s arms long enough to run a hand through his hair and down over the back of his neck. “Way better than I’ve been in days. But that’s-- how are you?”

“Hungry,” Castiel says. “Tired. Cold. And I’m--” Castiel swallows, looks down at his hands, balls them into fists to stop them from shaking. “I’m scared,” he admits, barely above a whisper, voice cracking.

“Hey,” Dean says softly. He slides from the coffee table to the couch, reaching out to wrap Castiel up in his arms, run a hand up and down along his spine.

Castiel sits with his fingers clenched into Dean’s shirt, his head tucked into the space between Dean’s neck and shoulder, and reminds himself he needs to breathe.

\--

Dean gives Castiel the spare clothes he brought for him, brings him a glass of water and some ibuprofen. He sits him at the kitchen counter and digs around in the cabinets, considers all the non-perishable food Castiel purchased for Kelly before opening the fridge and pulling out milk, eggs, butter and jam. He cracks the eggs into a bowl, whisks them together with a little milk, some salt and pepper.

“You didn’t salt and burn me,” Castiel says as Dean pours the eggs into a pan, back turned.

Dean pushes the eggs around with a spatula, shoulders taut. “I couldn’t,” he says. “Sam took one look at me and didn’t even bother suggesting it.”

Castiel rolls his half full glass of water between his hands and says, “Thank you.”

Dean stops stirring the eggs. He sets the spatula down on the counter and scrubs at his face with his hands. “Shit, Cas,” he says. “Don’t thank me for that. Please don’t thank me for burying you.”

Castiel’s hands still. He stares at the back of Dean’s head, then down into his glass. He says, “Thank you for never giving up on me.”

Dean is quiet for a long moment. He picks the spatula back up, stirs the food. “Yeah,” he says. “Of course, man. I wouldn’t-- I could never.”

\--

They strip down to their t-shirts and boxers, lie facing one another on the couch under the blanket. Dean uses one arm to pull Castiel close and the other to trace gentle fingers over his cheekbone, down the side of his face, into the fine hair at the back of his neck, before leaning the rest of the way in and kissing him, slow and tentative. Castiel closes his eyes and sighs into it, relaxes in Dean’s grip.

“I prayed for this,” Dean breathes between kisses. “I prayed for this, but I never thought-- I never--”

Dean kisses him again, over and over until Castiel can feel himself starting to drift.

“Me, too,” Castiel murmurs. He falls asleep with Dean pressed against him, fingers stroking through his hair, soothing.

\--

They eat a simple breakfast the next morning, raid the pantry for snacks for the road. When they leave, they don’t bother to lock the door behind them.

They climb into Castiel’s truck to start the long drive home, Dean at the wheel and Castiel in the passenger seat. Castiel sits with his window down, breeze ruffling his hair, and digs the last of the sand out from under his fingernails.

**Author's Note:**

> [here's](http://domesticadventures.tumblr.com/post/161027509577/) a rebloggable version on tumblr if you're so inclined!


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